Israel vs. Hezbollah in Lebabon: It’s not over yet (?)

Yesterday, five Lebanese prisoners were released by Israel and returned to Lebanon, where they were welcomed as heroes only “hours after Hezbollah [had] handed over the bodies of two Israeli soldiers [who had been] seized by its guerrillas two years ago. After being transported to Lebanon by the International Committee of the Red Cross, the five freed prisoners were taken by helicopter to Beirut, “where they were accorded a red-carpet welcome by Lebanese President Michel Suleiman, Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, the entire cabinet and a host of lawmakers and religious leaders.” At the outdoor reception for the freed five, Suleiman said: “Your return is a new victory and the future in your presence will be a path in which we will realize the sovereignty of our territory and the liberty of our people.” (Agence France Presse)

Yesterday, at a crossing point on the Lebanese-Israeli border, Hezbollah representatives turned over coffins containing the remains of two Israeli soldiers to officials from the International Committee of the Red Cross, who then delivered them to Israel

Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s leader, made a rare public appearance at the welcome celebrations, which were “attended by tens of thousands of people in the southern suburbs of Beirut” yesterday night. Nasrallah said: “The period of defeat is over and the time of victory has arrived….This people and this nation and this country that gave a clear picture to the world…cannot be defeated….” Agence France Presse notes that the five Lebanese who had been held in Israel “were released in exchange for the bodies of two Israeli soldiers, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, [who had been] captured on July 12, 2006,” prompting the government of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to launch a war against Hezbollah forces in Lebanon that lasted 34 days and killed more than 1300 people in Israel and Lebanon.

AFP also reports that many Israelis are questioning whether their country “is paying too high a price for the return of the [two] soldiers…, saying the swap risks bolstering its arch foes in the region. Israel also was [expected] to transfer to Lebanon the remains of 199 Palestinian and Hezbollah fighters [that had been] exhumed over the past week.” Canada’s Globe and Mail reported that, in Israel, the return of the corpses of Goldwasser and Regev represented “a painful conclusion to a lengthy debate: At what price must no soldier be left behind?” Yesterday, Israeli President Shimon Peres observed: “It’s not a happy day for anyone, releasing murderers of this sort….But we have a moral and emotional obligation to bring the fighters home. This is what we’ve always done.” The Canadian newspaper’s news article noted: “Beyond the emotion of the actual exchange, [yesterday’s] handover [was] also a difficult reminder to both Israelis and Lebanese that negotiations…achieved what the 34-day war did not. Yet the fallout of that war continues. Israel’s perceived failures in that conflict brought down a defense minister and its army’s chief of staff, and has left…Olmert fighting for his political career. In Lebanon, Hezbollah emerged from the [2006 war] more popular than ever, giving it the clout to force a power-sharing agreement that grants it a veto in [the Lebanese government’s] cabinet.”

Yesterday, Israel handed five Lebanese prisoners to the International Committee of the Red Cross, which then delivered them to Lebanon; Israel also sent nearly 200 coffins containing the remains of Palestinian and Hezbollah fighters to Lebanon

The Israeli daily Ha’aretz reports that, now that the Israeli-Lebanese prisoner swap has been completed, “the Israeli defense establishment is worried that Hezbollah may seek a calculated escalation along the Lebanese border, and try to disrupt Israel Air Force flyovers in Lebanese airspace.” Ha’aretz adds: “Israeli intelligence sources said it appears [that Hezbollah] is looking for new excuses to clash with Israel, and that…disrupting the [Israel Air Force] flights could become another key area of operation. Until now, the IAF has enjoyed complete freedom of operation, which it used to collect intelligence.”

Separately, an editorial in Ha’aretz advises: “From this point on, what is needed is a serious reassessment of the Israeli position…[of]….how we differentiate between the living and the dead, between exchanges involving live prisoners and dead soldiers – a differentiation that has become worryingly blurred in Israeli society. One can certainly understand the Goldwasser and Regev families, who, until the very last moment, were unable to accept that their sons were no longer alive and needed clear-cut proof to start the mourning process. It is harder to understand the addiction of an entire country to an illusion that was orchestrated by Hezbollah” – which appeared to suggest for a long time that maybe Goldwasser and Regev were still alive – “but which relied heavily on the Israeli media and Israeli politicians, who infused the negotiations with promises, clichés…and problematic statements like ‘bring the boys back home.'” The editorial adds: “It is hard to shake off the sense that something fundamental has changed in the ethos of Israeli society. In the past, soldiers risked their lives to save the lives of their comrades; in recent years, however, soldiers have been sent to recover the body parts of other soldiers, while putting their own lives at risk.”

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert (right) hugged Karnit Goldwasser, the widow of Israeli soldier Ehud Goldwasser, after the coffin containing his remains was received yesterday at a military base in northern Israel

An editorial in the Jerusalem Post describes yesterday’s welcome ceremony in Beirut for the freed Lebanese prisoners as an “undignified and morally offensive spectacle” and notes that, by contrast, in Israel, on the occasion of the return of Goldwasser and Regev’s remains, “dignity was the order of the day.” The conservative newspaper states: “Despite yesterday’s ignominious displays of chest-thumping and gloating, Hezbollah stands somewhat chastened. It reportedly lost 500 to 600 of its fighters in a war which brought devastation to the Lebanese economy and infrastructure….It has not staged an attack in two years.”

In Lebanon, the Daily Star notes that, with the completion of the prisoner swap, the Hezbollah-led “resistance movement…closed yet another chapter in the long history of its struggle” with Israel and that it did so “in a manner that prevented the Israelis from dictating the outcome. The only issues still outstanding are ones of real estate, and here the potential for Hezbollah and the Lebanese state to work in concert is considerable. There is a good chance that now, having repeatedly been bested in a game whose rules they authored, the Israelis will be more susceptible to the genuine diplomacy that their governments have traditionally disdained. That may or may not entail negotiations of some sort, but it must include a retreat from the logic of force and, therefore, compliance with multiple [United Nations] Security Council resolutions by withdrawing from Lebanese territory it still occupies.”

Hezbollah fighters rode horses yesterday as they took part in a military parade in conjunction with the handing over of the remains of two Israeli soldiers to the International Committee of the Red Cross at the Lebanese-Israeli border

The Daily Star‘s editorial advises: “For the Israelis [, yesterday] had to have been a humiliating experience. They slaughtered more than 1200 Lebanese, the vast majority of them civilians, after Hezbollah ambushed a patrol and carried off two Israeli troops on July 12, 2006. They dishonored themselves, betrayed their faith, and violated the norms of civilized warfare by venting their frustration on innocent women and children. They added insult to injury by littering the South with millions of cluster munitions that continue to kill and maim. In the end, however, they did precisely what Hezbollah’s…Nasrallah, said they would. Hopefully, when the humiliation wears off, they will have learned a valuable lesson.”

Writing in Britain’s Independent, journalist and long-time Middle East watcher Robert Fisk observes: “Yesterday was the last day of the 2006 Lebanon war, the final chapter of Israel’s folly and Hezbollah’s hubris, a grisly day of corpse-swapping….But it was also a day of humiliation [,…] most of all for the Israelis….For the Americans who have supported the democratically elected Lebanese government of Fouad Siniora, it was a day of hopelessness….[T]here will most assuredly be another war. By the roadside south of Tyre yesterday, there was a huge poster of an Israeli warship struck by a Hezbollah missile in 2006, burning fiercely. ‘And more to come,’ the caption announced, archly.”